The striking climate impact of beef

Last year I wrote a whole series of posts about meat, and how we can reduce the environmental impact of our diet. An NRDC report came out last week that demonstrates the point very well. This graph shows America’s food related per capita greenhouse gas emissions. As you can see, there has been a 10% decline in the last decade or so.

That decline is almost entirely down to changing dietary preferences, and Americans eating less beef. In that time, beef consumption fell by 19%. The drop in sales has been equivalent to taking 39 million cars off the road – such is the impact of beef.

In fact, if you look at the top five foods in the American diet and rank them by climate impact, this is what you get:

There’s a simple message in that pie chart. The simplest thing you can do to reduce the…